Hi, I’m Becky, an artist and writer based in Derbyshire. I write about my life in what I hope is an honest and open way. I write about mental health, autism, sobriety and simply trying to find my way in this world. Please subscribe to support my work and to read more of my posts.
Hello,
How are you?
I must be honest, I’ve been feeling a little despondent just recently. I am feeling like I can’t really be bothered with Substack - neither writing nor reading other people’s wonderful articles and letters. I’ve been just half-heartedly glancing over them. It’s weird because I’ve only just had a break but I wasn’t as strict about screen time so maybe that’s the problem - my brain didn’t get a chance to switch off.
Anyhow, I have still found that I wanted to write to you all this week. This letter started off as a catch up but then a noticed a definite theme, that theme being sleep, so I went with it.
Enjoy!
My quiet alarm clock is no more!
That is a very dramatic heading which makes out it was murdered, after being kidnapped by some ne’er-do-wells.
What actually happened was it started making a weird noise, it wouldn’t stop, so I had to get a refund.
For a while, I did wonder if I was going insane because it was such a strange sound and it didn’t do it all the time so I began to wonder if I was hearing things.
I attempted to find another quiet clock but it was harder than you can imagine. I found clocks that are described as “silent” but then they have reviews saying things like:
Great clock! Does the job. There is a slight tick though.
I don’t know about you but, to me, if a “silent” clock makes any kind of noise, that’s not a great clock, that’s a broken clock.
So, alas, I have gone back to my phone. After a couple of weeks of the weird noise stopping me sleeping/making me think I was going insane, it was nice to have complete silence.
But now, I don’t think I’m sleeping as well. I don’t know whether it’s physcosomatic and I just feel I shouldn’t be sleeping as well because everyone says it’s bad for us to sleep with a phone nearby but I also can’t bring myself to wade through umpteen reviews trying to find an actually silent clock.
If you have found one, in recent years, and it is completely, 100% silent, please send me a link to it! It would be greatly appreciated.
Let’s get physical!
If you’ve been here a while, you will no that I became sober in June 2023. And I took this big decision and decided it would be the start of me getting healthier.
Within days of this thought entering my head, I hurt my left foot. Eight months on, I am still in physio.
I was talking to my partner about wanting to workout and he said to me:
”You could do upper body.”
Mind blown at this painfully obvious information, I began doing upper body and core workouts. I started slow, just 10 minute Youtube videos and then true Becky kicked in and I bought dumbells that go up to 30kgs. You have to have goals, right?
Anyhow, I’ve been feeling good and I’ve set up my workout trackers (because you all know I love a tracker!) and then something utterly bizarre happened.
I decided I was going to start getting up earlier because I wanted to do a workout before work and I started setting my alarm for 6.30am, with the idea that I would slowly get to 6am. (Tara, if you are reading this, please don’t faint!1)
I decided on this early wake up time because even though I actually enjoy working out and I look forward to doing it, I still need to do it as early as possible because, if I leave it too long, I will not do it.
If that doesn’t tell you I’m a self destructive fucker I don’t know what will!
Early to bed, early to rise makes a Becky not want to commit murder
I feel a need to let you all know that now I am getting up earlier, I am going to bed early too.
(I, in fact, always go to bed early to read so, in reality, I haven’t suddenly started staying up until midnight.)
I see so many people promoting that getting up earlier gives you “more hours in the day”.
NO!
If you are getting up earlier, you should be going to bed earlier.
Nothing pains me more than people moving their wake up time to an earlier time and not moving their bed time to coincide.
(Bed time? Am I eight?! Mentally, yes.)
Sleep is so important2 for us. It’s up there with food, water and oxygen as it helps to restore our minds and bodies.
But, I’m not your Mum and you can do what you want but if you struggle to stay consistent with an earlier wake up time or you feel exhausted or are experiencing feelings of burn out, you may want to reassess things.
Or you may choose to ignore this completely, which is your prerogative but, if you are getting up at 5am and yet you still see midnight most nights, please know I am weeping for you, whilst getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night.
Night owls are people too
You also 100% do not have to get up early to achieve your goals or to do the stuff that makes you feel good.
A work out/journaling session/walk etc. done at 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 9pm etc. is just as good for you as one done at 5am, 6am, 7am.
It is the things you are doing, habits you are building or changing that will have a good impact on your life, not the time you wake up to do them.
5am is not a magic time where fairies and pixies come out and take away all our worries and make the day easier. The things people do at 5am are what help their day go better and they will have the exact same effect later in the day.
5am wake up seems to bring with it a lot of bragging rights which I really don’t understand. If getting up at 5am works for you, great, but you aren’t a better person than someone who gets up later in the day. I have found that, a lot of the time, a 5am wake up time simply means the person has kids and that’s the only time they get peace to do what they want/need to do.
Ultimately, your routine has to work for you and although it can be lovely to hear or read about other people’s, you shouldn’t get bogged down in trying to emulate it. You are a wonderfully unique person and what works for others might not work for you.
And that doesn’t mean you aren’t trying hard enough, it just means it doesn’t work. Take people’s advice if you want to but adapt it so it works for you.
And leave the stuff that doesn’t work. Whether that’s 5am wake up calls or cold showers or intermittent fasting or anything else that is on trend right now. Leave it and get on being you.
Because you are great.
✨ Are you an early bird or a night owl?
Weirdly, I don’t think I’m either. I think I’m more a day person but that doesn’t have a fun bird reference. Day penguin? Does that work?
Thank you so much for reading. For someone who began this letter saying I wasn’t really feeling Substack right now, I managed to witter on, didn’t I?
As always, if you did enjoy it , please give it a like, leave me a comment or reply to this email. And please give it a share or a restack. It would mean a lot. Thank you. 🖤
Take care of yourself. And get enough sleep!
Love,
Becky
🖤✨🌈
I worked with Tara when she was a coach and I made it very clear that hell would freeze over before I became one of those ”early morning people”. How time’s change…
Sleep Matters - https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/publications/sleep-matters-impact-sleep-health-and-wellbeing#
I resonate re the reading and writing here. The world is so exhausting that one has to be compassionate in prioritising what matters most, even though I have a little fomo because there is such a brilliant range of writers and topics to read and learn from.
Love this! I am an absolute monster if I don't get enough sleep, so however un-rock'n'roll it may make me, I've really learnt over the years that it's something I have to prioritise. RIP your alarm clock, that's so frustrating for you as I know you'd been really loving it. I love the very early mornings and the late nights - mainly just for how quiet they are - it's the inbetweens I struggle with! If my commitments were structured differently I'd probably try and do both and then embrace naps inbetween, but for now I'm mostly a day penguin (though I do love a lie-in as a treat).